


Enviable Protectors; Envying Protectorates

by whaleofatime



Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Haunted Houses, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-25 03:56:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13825968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whaleofatime/pseuds/whaleofatime
Summary: Tag yourself: in a haunted house, who’s the one who gets scared, and who’s the one who holds steady?Who’s the one who starts running and won’t stop, and who’s the one who stops breathing and can’t start?Or,The world’s shittiest shift at the Nightmare Horror Hospital : Blood Moon attraction.





	Enviable Protectors; Envying Protectorates

 It started out the way these things always start out; Lenalee gets an idea into her head and goes yes! Let’s! And then Allen goes oh, yes, sounds lovely, because there is no mortal on Earth more willing to go along with absolutely anything for the sake of Lenalee, and then he’ll convince Lavi, who is generally game for anything, especially when it’s a double-date with disaster. 

 From conception to action, it usually takes about a week for them to organise things. About one (1) minute for Lenalee to convince Allen to do something, about one (1) day for Allen to cajole Lavi into both taking part and strong-arming Yuu into coming, and then the remaining six (6) days for Lavi to throw herself repeatedly and with vigour at Yuu’s resistance until the woman gives up and goes fuck, fine, when this shit goes bad you only have yourself to blame.

 Their last outing had been to a surf class; it had gone relatively well for them, until Allen lost patience with the instructor extremely aggressively hitting on Lenalee and nailed the man in the back with his surfboard while apologetically blaming an extra-strong wave nobody else in the ocean had felt. 

 One eye down, Lavi’s not too good at the whole balancing on a board on moving water thing, so between her frequent wipeouts and Allen not really hiding the fact that he had it out for the instructor it took a hell of a lot of Convincing to get Yuu to agree to another group event. So much convincing that Lavi’s got lockjaw by day 3, just about, but she sees it through until Yuu is tired out and flopped over in bed going “Fine.”

 Man oh man, that new haunted house that just opened up in town won’t know what hit ‘em. 

-

 Lavi’s not sure if it’s marketing genius or literal madness, to decide to open Nightmare Horror Hospital : Blood Moon on the night of the super blood blue moon, but Lavi knows it’s absolutely bonkers that instead of freezing her ass off on the little balcony of their tiny apartment with her good binoculars in one hand and a mug of hot toddy in the other, she’s freezing her ass off in a line waiting to enter a weird attraction on a weirder double-date.

 Her shivering must get real obvious, because a heavy coat drops around her shoulders, and Yuu is looking away in her woolly black turtleneck sipping hot hot tea from her thermos. She’s gotta be freezing, but in terms of just stupid ridiculous quality of being, Yuu’s real hard to beat. 

 So’s Lenalee, in all fairness; Allen’s trying to insist that he’s really fine! It’s just the sniffles, please don’t give me your coat, honestly it’s fine! to no avail, and now Lavi’s laughing with a red-faced Allen, both of them warm inside-out thanks to their absurdly gallant but exceedingly casual girlfriends.

 “Y’know, do you think a day will come that we’ll be cooler than them?” Lavi asks, trying to not be super obvious about rubbing her face against the collar of Yuu’s coat. Allen’s no better, even if Lenalee’s is a little too small for him and hangs like a cape.

 Allen clears his throat, rubbing his cheek to try to get them to calm the hell down. “Dunno about you, Lavi,” he replies, “But I certainly won’t.”

 Lavi shrugs, because that sounds about right, to be honest. 

 A piercing wail cracks through the night, and the gaggle of girls behind them erupt into screams. Their little foursome doesn’t even blink; it’s going to take a bit more than that, yes.

 A lady near the entrance dressed like a nurse announces that with the moon all but gone in shadows, it is time to begin. The Nightmare Horror Hospital is now admitting patients.

 A man stumbles out from behind the curtains leading into the building, covered in blood and half his face burned to scars, shrieking and running towards the line of people.

 A young man ahead of them had been on the phone during the announcement, and he hangs up and turns around just as Burn Patient is screeching and running up to him.

 Young Man passes out in a dead faint, the girls behind them start screaming again, and it’s already chaos before the first group has been ushered in.

 Hooooly fuck, Lavi loves group date nights.

-

 They’re allowed in as a group of 4, with Lenalee at the head and Yuu at the back end. It’s like the girls had decided to be the sheepdogs, because Lavi (an actual champion weightlifter who could deadlift her girlfriend) and Allen (a part-time bouncer in a bar on the rougher side of town who gets a bottle smashed over his head once every other week) were lambs that needed protecting, or something.

 Lenalee gets a flashlight to lead, and Yuu gets a spray bottle of the Antidote that they ostensibly are meant to use on the final boss towards the end of the walk-through. Lavi’s surprised the moment they step inside, though; it’s absolutely pitch-black, and barring the little flashlight they really would be walking into walls.

 She won’t admit it to anybody for anything, but it’s more unnerving than she expected. It’s a haunted house; of course there’s going to be weird noises, rustles and groans and creaks, and she had been prepared for that, absolutely. 

 Lavi had been less prepared for how bone-deep uncomfortable it made her to be all-blind instead of just half-blind, and not being able to just quickly turn her head to see what’s out her right side is freaking her out.

 Yuu watches, 100% ready to pounce at the slightest provocation. One finger’s on the spray bottle ready to go, other hand’s clenched in a fist, and she’s ready to fight anybody for anything. 

 Yuu also walks along Lavi’s right, and makes sure to occasionally bump into the idiot, who probably thinks Yuu can’t see her flinching and freaking out.

 She isn’t scared, because (mistakenly or not) Yuu is pretty sure the only things that she should ‘fear’ (what an unfamiliar word) are things that could kill her, at which point, why bother being afraid anyways?

 “Stop freaking out, idiot rabbit.” Yuu moves the spray bottle to her other hand so she can link fingers (it’s discreet, but also easy to disengage if she needs to haul off and introduce violence to the face of whoever deserves it). 

 Lavi finds it easier to settle down with Yuu in her blind spot; it's always been like that. 

 Deep breaths, Lavi tells herself. Ain’t nothing here that this group couldn’t feasibly take down in a fight!

 She still screams when a wheelchair is sent flying out of a room in front of them, but that is neither here nor there. 

-

 Allen, meanwhile, is completely unperturbed. He’s got excellent night vision, given that the part-time jobs that paid the best usually take place in skeezy places with crap lighting, and he had also learned at a young age that not goblins nor ghouls will ever hold a patch on true terror, the very  _real_ evil of Man.

 Case in point, despite not believing in neither ghosts nor god, he lets out a startled little Eep! when he sees a staff member crouching behind a desk start banging on the door, so that Lenalee turns to look at him and smile, holding out her hand.

 “Sorry, Allen,” she tells him, protective arm slung around his waist. “Are you bad with haunted houses?”

 “Oh, I’m absolutely terrible,” he lies shamelessly, cuddling closer and truly believing for the first time tonight that this is going to be a good date, “but it’s less scary in a group, and you wanted to try it and it got me rather excited too.”

 The hand at his waist squeezes gently, and Allen is thinking a weekly date night somewhere haunted sounds like actual heaven. 

 “Don’t worry,” Lenalee whispers with conviction, because she’s the best lady! With the biggest heart! And it’s just how she is. “I’ll take care of you.”

 “That’s so gay!” Lavi calls out from behind them, as though she’s got a leg to stand on, as though she isn’t high-key clinging to her girlfriend with her blind side pressed to the side of Yuu’s head in the ultimate defence pose.

 Allen rolls his eyes, even if he doesn’t step away from Lenalee. “Lavi, honestly, you’re such a wan-”

 CRASH! is the sound a gurney makes when it’s flung down a flight of stairs, stopped conveniently by a pile of chairs a little down the hallway from them. 

 HOLY JESUS FUCK! are the words that leave Lavi’s mouth, and “That seems terribly unsafe,” are what leave Allen’s.

 Yuu is extremely unamused by the threat of physical violence, even if at the entrance they were told repeatedly that there wouldn’t be any actual contact. “The sick and twisted horrors you see will affect your mind! The Hospital will horrify you from the inside out!” is what the woman handing out the flashlights had said, smiling dully.

 Oh, someone certainly will be seeing inside-out horror.

 “Stay here,” she tells Lavi, and hands over the Antidote bottle to Allen because she knows true fear (Lavi nervously rubbing just under her bad eye) versus I-want-to-make-out fear (Allen right now; Lavi when she purposely irritates Yuu to get some extra rough Fun Times). 

 “Kanda, wait, what do you think you’re-” is about all Lenalee manages to say before Yuu is off like a hellhound on a scent, running full speed down the corridor, vaulting over the tipped gurney like a furious gazelle and navigating the props on the floor flawlessly before surging up the stairwell on wings of anger.

 Gone out of sight but not out of mind, in the near distance they hear Yuu thunderously shouting “Who the  _hell_ threw a bed at me?” and it is, Allen must admit, the most frightening thing they’ve heard thus far. 

 “So,” he says, tugging Lenalee with him to stand on Lavi’s blind side because she was Entrusted to him, yes. “Should we go after her?”

 Up top, they hear more screaming, and given that the actors are stuck just the same in the dark as Yuu is, literal horror is probably unfolding as soon as you go up the steps.  It certainly added to the atmosphere of the place, and Allen’s certainly feeling more scared (if they get sued by the attraction because Kanda traumatised a bunch of hapless workers what is going to happen to his savings-)

 Lenalee is tapping her foot on the ground, chin furrowed in thought; she calls it a nervous habit, but Allen calls it warm-up. There are very few threats in this world that can’t be taken down by a Lenalee kick to the head, yes, but right now the last thing they need is another worryingly strong woman wreaking havoc on the Hospital.

 Damn you, Kanda, for ruining a perfectly good date night! Allen locks arms with both girls, to reassure Lavi and to assure himself that Lenalee won’t be running off, and drags them forwards cautiously. “Let’s just get up the stairs first, shall we?”

 How hard can it be to follow after Kanda’s trail of destruction?

-

 Very hard, because the pen light dies as soon as they get up on the second floor, so abruptly that Allen’s convinced this was somehow a planned part of the haunted house because it’s just eery-grey here rather than pitch black. Lenalee had been quite irritated when the light gave out, and the foot tapping had started and Allen found himself chanting ‘Damage control’ under his breath.

 Lavi, absolutely not helping Allen’s peace of mind, had picked up a worryingly heavy chair leg of a prop piece and is twirling it around like it’s an umbrella on a merry day out instead of like a bludgeon being held by the most skittish member of the party. When Allen had suggested that, perhaps, Lavi put down the weapon because this is not, in fact, a gang war, she had laughed her usual bright laugh and said “Not till we get to Yuu-chan, yeah!”

 So now he’s sandwiched between two extremely lovely ladies who are literally (literally!) poised to murder, and he’s hoping that the monsters up ahead are so preoccupied with Kanda that they don’t show themselves.

 Unfortunately, Gross Heavy Injury Lady With A Fence Post Sticking Out Her Head didn’t get the message, lumbering out from a side room, groaning and dripping fake blood absolutely everywhere, urgh, what a horrible mess to clean. 

 She’s moaning and stumbling towards them, clutching her head and going “It hurts, it hurts!” 

 Obviously it would, miss, you’ve a fence post clear through your skull. Allen feels bad for thinking salty thoughts; haunted houses aren’t exactly the bastion of good script writing, and it’s not her fault that he’s feeling tetchy trying to prevent extended suffering. 

 She’s getting closer and closer, glowing softly from lights embedded in her traumatic injury, and in all fairness she looks an awful sight.

 Why, if he were the type to get scared, this certainly would-

 Lavi’s banshee shriek cuts off further thoughts, and it’s only pure animal instinct that has Allen locking his arm tight to stop Lavi from running towards her with the chair leg swingin’. 

 (Lavi, Lavi’s all animal instinct. The post goes right through her eye socket, and it’s throwing up all sorts of flashbacks, and Allen’s a great boy and Lenalee’s a greater girl but they sure aren’t Yuu-chan, and there’s blood there’s gore there’s there’s there’s-)

 Lenalee pulls herself free from Allen’s death grip to go straight to Lavi, tugging her to look away from the monster lady, who looks somewhat puzzled but is gamely getting closer anyways. “Lavi, it’s okay,” she rubs her back and hugs tighter. “Look, it’s just an actor in make-up, all right? She isn’t scary at all, and even if she was a ghost, look at her shoulders!” Pat pat pat. “She’s super cute, but she probably wouldn’t even win at arm wrestling against me, so you would have no problem taking her down. I believe in you, Lavi!”

 That, ah, certainly made the actor stop in her tracks, though her expression goes from being a little bemused to downright offended. Allen’s not sure how that’s the path the lady decided to go with, and even less sure why Lenalee’s motivational speech is exclusively based on their ability to beat people up. He does know that shit-stirring quirk to the actor’s lips, though. The “My honour is besmirched and I’m going to pay you back twice-over” look, because Kanda gets like that a whole lot and Allen’s learned response is to tackle it swiftly.  

 So he grabs the Lena-Lavi compound and starts dragging them along, keeping a careful eye on the woman who he knows is under contract to not actually touch anybody.

 The smirk had betrayed her; just as Lavi passes by her, the woman reaches out with her ghostly-pale fingers to touch Lavi’s face, oh, my god, honestly, what an unpleasant woman, and Allen just lets loose.

 Drawing a deep breath, he ducks closer to Fence Woman and screams at his absolute loudest volume _right into her ear_.

 It’s probably like a sound grenade, that close up, and add to that Allen viciously hoping she gets tinnitus for obviously trying to kick Lavi while she’s down.

 Hoping to avoid litigation after shrieking her eardrums in, Allen rushes them along and loudly goes “Oh, wow, that was really scary!” for plausible deniability. Lavi and Lenalee are still in a half-hug trailing behind him, Lenalee standing in for an absentee girlfriend and Lavi trying to insist that it was just a bit of a scare, yeah, don’t worry about it, Lena, honestly ‘m all right!

 Nobody is all right, Allen thinks. Haunted houses are the absolute worst, and he reckons he isn’t the only one feeling this way.

-

 Haunted houses might not be the worst, thinks Tyki as he stands firm in a stand-off with the one-woman-typhoon who had sped down the corridor of the upper floor swearing vengeance upon ???

 Who knows, at this point. 

 He had been sneaking a cigarette out of a window he’d managed to crack open the littlest bit before he’d heard the chaos outside his little operating theatre. Deciding to go take a look, he had pulled on his face mask, neatened up the ribbon of intestines that were part of his costume around his waist, and stepped out-

 -to see an extremely good-looking girl wielding her displeasure like a goddamn sword, not even sparing a look at all the artfully decapitated corpses decorating the outside of the room (he’s Doctor Death with abominable interior deco).

 “Are you the manager?” she snaps, like someone’s just spat in her coffee and this is Starbucks. 

 Tyki’s just doing this as a favour for opening night, and he’s part of the finale-spectacular because the casting director had said being hot and dangerous would really get the ladies and some of the men going. He doesn’t particularly care about being a scary man, but he does think it’s only fair to give it a bit of a go, so he moans low and mildly sexually, brandishing a blunt bone saw covered in gunk.

 The woman doesn’t even blink, just clicks her tongue at him like he’s wasting her time. “What are you, Doctor Deaf? I asked a question.”

 He waves the saw again for good measure, but if possible she’s even less scared than he is. So Tyki drops the saw, and plucks the gently smouldering cigarette tucked behind his ear. “Hey, lady,” he drawls out, sultry as anything. “What are you doing all the way out here by yourself?”

 There’s a sofa for staff hidden in the room behind him; the only question is, is this lovely lady down to get lucky with him tonight? 

 “Oh my god,” the woman growls. “First the slutty nurse just ignores me and walks away, then the Siamese twin idiots just kept squawking, and then the guy that, fuck, what, cosplayed as a wall? Just stood there staring at me for a while. You must be the goddamn manager, because you’re the worst one so far.”

 Amused, Tyki grins at her, leaning against the door jamb to emphasise how tight his scrubs actually are. “Come now, miss, it’s a hospital of horrors, there’s bound to be lots of mysterious going-ons. Or did you need, mmm, a little more stimulation?”

 She’s a looker, and he certainly likes spirited women; plus with her hair all mussed up and her cute little frown, she’s just really fitting neatly into Tyki’s Type.

 It finally seems to connect in her head that he’s Offering something, and the way she goes from terminally angered to cocky smirking is, if anything, additionally attractive. “I’m out of your league, idiot.”

 First, untrue. Tyki’s knows wild attractiveness when he sees it, and he sees it every day in the mirror, thank you very much. Second, oh, he sure does love a challenge. Pushing away from the wall, he crowds into her space, getting in so close she has to tilt her head back to maintain eye contact. “You sure?” he asks, voice a low rumble. He reaches to gently tuck her hair behind her ear, tugging a little on the strands. “Baby, you won’t know what I’m good for until you see all I’ve got.” 

 She hasn’t moved away from him, and even if she hasn’t succumbed to his charms yet, he’s pretty sure some good times on the couch and it’ll all be good. Grinning like a shark, he ducks down to go for a kiss-

-

 Breaking eye contact is pretty much the same as admitting weakness, so Yuu doesn’t. Letting the irritating pretty boy get closer grates on her nerves, and her jaw’s grit so hard her teeth might get pressurised into diamonds, but she waits for some contact.

 Any contact, to give her a reason to punch the guy right in his idiot face.

 Oh, god, he’s actually pursed his lips for a kiss, Yuu thinks absently as she draws her fist back. Lavi’s going to get a kick out of this story- 

-

 It’s been a rough date. It’s part and parcel of dating Yuu and having the friend circle that they have that sometimes outings are Rough. Lavi knows this, and more often than not it’s what she enjoys. Nothing ever goes to plan, whether it’s going skiing together or McDonald’s at 4 in the morning, and variety is the spice of life, y’know?

 She didn’t exactly expect to be brung so damn low by some two-bit horror show, and the gruesomeness seems like it’s targeted right at her, because not Allen and not Lena (and most definitely not Yuu-chan) seem the slightest bit perturbed where Lavi’s just choking scream after scream in her throat.

 It’s irritating. Lavi can’t help feeling scared, it’s pretty much the purpose of this place, but Lavi also can’t help feeling increasingly irritated with herself. Lenalee and Allen have her sandwiched, and she really doesn’t enjoy being so out of her comfort zone that they could actually tell. It’s just another layer of Not Fun to this shit trifle, Lavi thinks, and she sure hopes they’re hitting up a bar after this because she could do with a stiff drink. 

 They’ve managed to progress quite swiftly since Fence Post Woman, mainly because Allen has taken to shrieking like a car alarm at the first appearance of trouble, and if that doesn’t deter them Lenalee will approach them and (presumably) tell the actors to take it easy on them. Whatever Lenalee says, it’s worked 10 out of 10 times, and Lavi’s both embarrassed and glad that pretty soon they’re in what has to be the last section of the whole thing.

 “Look,” Lenalee points to a sign. “The Surgery. We can’t be more than a minute away from the exit, by now. Kanda might already be out and waiting for us!” She says this with unrelenting optimism, so confident that Lavi believes her, and she can imagine herself running through the door into the open (?) arms of her girlfriend.

 It’s gonna be great, Lavi tells herself, cheering up a whole lot.

 They turn a corner still arm in arm, and that’s when they see the tableau laid before them. 

 Yuu, head tilted back, expression totally calm.

 Random man with guts for a belt, fingers pushing up Yuu’s chin, coming in hot for a kiss. 

 Allen goes “Oh, dear,” in a harassed kind of way, and Lenalee’s gasp is muffled by the hand she covers her mouth with.

 Lavi doesn’t know what’s going on, because there must be a reason for Yuu to just be standing there taking it. Threats? Harassment? Is Yuu deathly afraid of hot men in doctor’s scrubs?

 Whatever it is, Lavi’s not down with that. It’s going against the law of the world, the concept of a cowed Yuu-chan, and despite all her own fears and paranoia and constant flinching, she knows what must be done.

 She unleashes a war cry-

 Allen gasps and says “This is a terrible idea,”-

 Lenalee is reaching out for her calling her name-

 Yuu catches sight of the remaining three-quarters of her group date and like Bruce Lee’s possessed her hand, she catches the weird mouthy man’s jaw in a tight grip before he can get one on her, holding him steady a couple of inches away as she turns to look over at them.

 “What in the hell are you doing, rabbit?” she asks, calm as anything as Lavi slows to a halt, chair leg still held up like a club. Doctor Deaf is straining, trying to pull away from her but he can’t (because Yuu has a grip strength that has made much, much bigger men cry). 

 “Uhm,” goes Lavi. “Protecting y’virtue?”

 “Does it look like it needs protecting?” Yuu squeezes, and the man in her grasp now has fish-lips.

 “I was really worried!” Lavi protests, pouting and getting close enough to kiss her girlfriend on her cheek.

“So were we,” Lenalee says, drawing up next to the doctor-man and looking like she’s half considering just kicking him because who tries to pick up women smack bang in the middle of a haunted house, honestly!

 “Uhm.”

 “So what happened, Yuu? We heard you runnin’ off to go murder the people who threw the bed down th’stairs, and then-”

 “Uhm!!” Allen goes again, louder. “So, Kanda, how about you let go of my manager?” 

 There’s complete silence, shattered only by screams in the distance by the group that came in after them, until Yuu just shrugs in vague disinterest and shoves actual-manager-man away.

 Tyki rubs his jaw and eyes the buxom red-headed newcomer, grin creeping right back up on his face. “Do you two come as a set, then?”

 “Jesus lord Christ,” Allen mutters under his non-god-fearing breath. “Tyki, what are you even doing here? Has business really become so awful at the bar?”

 “Wouldn’t still be employing you if it had, kid. This is my uncle’s thing, and he needed some help,” Tyki says, now turning his attention to Lenalee as Lavi struggles to stop Kanda from committing murder. “Hello, miss.”

 Lenalee’s face is very clearly distrusting, but she’s also an extremely polite young woman, so she says “Hello” right back.

 Tyki reaches down for her hand, and draws it up to his lips. Contrary to all available evidence he asks her, “Are you here alone, then?”

 “She isn’t!” cries out Allen, who has had Quite Enough, as he flings the Antidote bottle right at Tyki’s head.

 That’s how the worker at the exit, wondering why their group was taking so long, finds them: Allen doing his level best to slam Tyki to the ground as Yuu shouts “Punch him in the goddamn face, beansprout!” and Lavi and Lenalee trying to mitigate the disaster.

 And that is also how they end up being perma-banned from  Nightmare Horror Hospital : Blood Moon, with Allen being bodily dragged away shouting “Good riddance to bad rubbish!” while Lenalee apologises to the staff who apologised for Tyki right back.

-

 Back from the bar, tipsy enough to scrub most of the unpleasantness from her memory, Lavi finds herself in a hot bath at 1 in the morning, Yuu spooning her from behind despite being half a head shorter (needs must!). It felt good to have her Going Out eyepatch off and feel the steam brushing against her bad side, and it feels even better to have Yuu just lazily brushing through her hair.

 It’s not a sex thing, but it is aftercare. Yuu’s just a lady of too-many talents, dead ass. Lavi feels an urge to wink at herself when Yuu’s fingers carefully pick out tangles, and wants to pat herself on the back for a good job well done when Yuu grumbles and asks, “You okay?”

 Lavi tilts her head back to rest on Yuu’s shoulder. “Think ‘m fine. To be honest, yeah,” she murmurs, gently biting Yuu’s jaw, “that time we tried snorkelling and Allen got K.O.’d by a jellyfish and started talkin’ ‘bout seeing God in th’medical tent might’ve been scarier.”

 Yuu doesn’t say anything, but might be thinking something along the lines of for a stone-cold non-believer Allen sure summons god up a whole lot. Regardless, Lavi carries through. “Wouldn’t y’know, seein’ body horror in the dark’s kind of not great for me, babe.”

 “Fuck knows why, you’re the biggest horror I’ve ever met,” which is, while not inherently a romantic sentiment, something real sweet when ended with a little smooch.

 They just relax for a bit more, before Lavi bursts out laughing, reaching back to pat pat Yuu-chan on the cheek. “Excited for our next group outing, babe?”

 This time it’s Yuu who calls upon the Lord in vain.

-

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this on the Super Blue Blood Moon moon night, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to share this here before I figured literally why the hell not?? And here we are.
> 
> Holla at ya girl here, where there is more fic than sense.


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